Admiral's Fall

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “I can, Triumvir,” said Magnus Davenport, giving the only answer any loyal Imperial officer could give.

  “Good,” the beautiful Triumvir reclined on her couch. “Now I’d like to discuss exactly how you’re going to carry out the will of the Senate,” she said mischievously as she posed artfully on the couch.

  Magnus just looked back at her steadily.

  “What’s your plan?” she asked, lifting a brow moving her arm in such a way that the front of her robe almost fell open, hinting at what lay barely hidden in shadow, “I’m all ears.”

  “Leave that to me,” said Magnus, standing up and starting toward the door, “my leave just started and now I must go tell my wife and child I have no more time for them.”

  Bellucci laughed. “Go ahead and run back to your wife, Magnus Davenport...if that’s what you want,” she chuckled.

  His back ramrod-straight, the middle-aged Admiral’s eyes glared steely anger at the room's doors until they swished open and he swept out of the room.

  Behind him, Bellucci continued to play the same little games that had lifted her above the common herd and made her the weakest member of the Triumvirate.

  Which was to say, she was one third of the most powerful executive authority in known space.

  Chapter 16: Magnus Speaks with Adviser Jerkins Simpers of the Imperial Secretariat

  Magus Davenport finished reading through the innumerable reports on the fiasco in Sector 25 of the Spine and rubbed his eyes.

  He finally felt like he had a handle on what had happened in Sector 25, as well as a good idea of just what needed to be done to rectify the current situation.

  Now all he needed to do was touch bases with the Imperial Secretariat, and deal with their undoubtedly unreasonable demands, if his fleet was to finish this mission as quickly as Bellucci and the Senate required.

  That was always fun.

  Grimly, he opened a channel to his Chief of Staff and asked her to set up the meeting.

  “Hello there, Admiral. What brings you to my office?” said the nondescript man in the Assistant Under Secretary’s office rising from his chair and extending his hand.

  “Magnus Davenport,” the Imperial Admiral said, introducing himself with an iron-faced nod and not doing the other man the courtesy of fully introducing himself.

  “Jenkins Simpers, at your service,” the Simpers reciprocated, his friendly expression not wavering for the slightest even in the face of the Admiral’s very rude greeting, “and today I am an Assistant Under-Secretary for my many sins.”

  “Nice office, Simpers,” Magnus said just to get the social pleasantries out of the way. He didn’t even bother the pretense of looking around the room.

  “Why, thank you, I do try to keep up appearances,” Simpers said with amusement.

  Magnus Davenport’s mouth tightened. His eyes were like laser beams as they roasted the man in front of him. “In truth, your office is shoddy, looking more like something that ought to belong to a clerk than an Under-Secretary,” he ground out, his temper starting to rise at the clear level of importance the Secretariat was showing toward his mission and more importantly his fleet.

  “I thought that was understood,” Simpers said, rolling his eyes and then leaning down to tap the ‘Assistant’ portion of his job title written in the placard in front of his desk, “now what can I do for you? I understand your fleet has certain specific needs.”

  “This is preposterous,” Magnus Davenport stood up, thrusting his chair that was now behind him out of the way.

  “What seems to be the issue?” Simpers asked, cocking his head in a manner that made the Admiral want to knock the simpering little fool in the head.

  “I obviously didn’t expect the Minister himself to personally deal with the needs of my fleet, but what I did expect was the Secretariat to show enough respect to assign a Assistant Minister or the Under Minister’s secretary at the very least. This,” he said, gesturing at the Jenkins Simpers and the rest of the room in contempt, “is not the manner of cooperation I was expecting. Instead it is a deliberate show of contempt!”

  By now the Imperial Admiral was starting to get genuinely angry. Placing his uniform hat under his arm, he turned on his heel and started for the door.

  “If you would prefer to speak with an Assistant Minister, I can arrange that for you. Of course, you’ll be speaking with someone who doesn’t have the slightest clue who you will need to speak with to gain access to the intelligence assets you’ll need. But if you would rather wait to speak with Secretariat’s head of the Spineward region’s covert units only after going through an Assistant Minister, I can always wait until then,” said Jenkins Simpers.

  Magnus Davenport stopped mid-step. “Flaming spooks,” he swore quietly and then turned on his heel.

  Jenkins Simpers continued to smile at him, only this time there was a faintly sinister cast to his expression.

  “You’re the man in charge of our intelligence assets in the region?” the Admiral demanded, his anger being replaced with overwhelming irritation with the spy games the Secretariat liked to play—even with line officers who really and honestly had better things to do with their time.

  “Deputy Station Chief for Confederation Affairs, with a recently expanded portfolio that includes the Spineward Sectors,” Jenkins Simpers said smoothly, “I can’t say that every Imperial agent in the Spine answers to me, just that I put the majority of our agents in their current locations and that they still answer to me—whether they know it or not.”

  Magnus Davenport frowned at Jenkins, who was still lounging in his chair while an Imperial Admiral stood and then resumed his seat with icy humor.

  “I take it then the name on the office is just for show?” he asked, taking his uniform hat and deliberately placing it on the table before him with the front turned toward himself.

  “For my sins I really am stuck in this office as an Assistant Under-Secretary,” he flashed a sharp smile, “for the moment at least. The job is real enough, as is the workload I’ve been saddled with, but I thought we were here to talk about you and your needs?” Simpers said with a smirk.

  Magnus looked at the spook silently and then, rapping a knuckle on the desk in front of him, he leaned forward, “Can I see some credentials?”

  “Sure,” Jenkins said, tossing him his Assistant Under-Secretary’s ID.

  Magnus tossed the ID back on the table and looked at Jenkins Simpers steadily.

  “Sorry, what you see is what you get. So let’s just assume for right now that you're too smart to throw away your best chance at getting what you need and let’s talk turkey,” said Simpers.

  “I’ve never had turkey, whatever that is, and just how sure are you that I need someone from the covert department?” Magnus shot back.

  Jenkins Simpers looked at him in disbelief and the Admiral realized just how stupid the question had been. “Do we really have to go there and play this little game? Really?” asked Simpers shaking his head. “How about instead we just skip to the part where you tell me what you need and I help you get it?”

  “I’ll admit it was clumsy, but I still need one question answered,” said Magnus.

  “I’m all ears,” Simpers scoffed.

  Magus took a steadying breath and reminded himself that he wasn’t dealing with an Assistant Under-Secretary, but a man just as competent in his field as Magnus Davenport was in his.

  “Why are you offering to help me? This isn’t charity on your part, and the Davenport Family doesn’t have the sort of connections in the Secretariat to secure the services of a man such as yourself. So I’ll say it again: why?” asked the middle scion of one of the Empire’s Senatorial families. “The Davenports have been higher, and we’ve certainly been lower, but right now we have an Admiral and a Governor to our name but our only representative in the Senate is a Grandfather living on borrowed time.”

  “Believe it or not, I am a man who looks after his agents. I put most of them out there in the line
of fire and I intend to see they’re taken care of,” Simpers said after a minute.

  “Can’t take the heat? Agents have sacrificed their lives for the Empire before. People die; you need to get used to it,” observed Magnus.

  Simpers looked at him with slitted eyes. “I don’t mind if they die for the Empire. A life without meaning is a waste, and a life without risk is useless. But right now they are not dying for the Empire but for Cornwallis’s folly, and that I can’t abide,” said the Deputy Station Chief.

  “Hmm,” said Magnus.

  Simpers looked at him patiently before adding, “I also have a personal stake in this situation as well as critical knowledge of the key players and events.”

  “That may be true as far as it goes, but do you know what I think?” asked Magnus.

  “I’m sure you’re about to tell me,” Simpers deadpanned.

  “I think that maybe you aren’t supposed to be here...that maybe you have the ability to help me but are acting on your own accord, not from directives by higher authority,” said Magnus.

  “And why would I do that?” asked Simpers.

  “You only control most of the agents in the Spine, yet you’re up on everything I need to know. I wouldn’t happen to be the first commander of an Imperial fleet about to be sent into the Spine that you’ve helped in the past am I?” demanded Magnus.

  “I don’t exactly see how any of that matters,” Simpers said, his face hardening.

  “I do. I’m already being pulled in three different directions and, one of those directions isn’t even aware I’m working to reclaim his Command Carriers,” Magnus Davenport barked, “I need further complications like I need a hole in the head. A man cannot serve three masters at the same time and do it well. I don’t need to be tied up in a Cornwallis plot to extricate the Praetor from a hell of his own creation at the expense of my fleet and myself.”

  “I can tell you that you’ve got me all wrong, but believing or not believing is up to you,” said Simpers, “my connection to the Senator was that of a working relationship only. He needed Secretariat assets for operations in the Spine and his authorization from the Senate provided access to those assets. Along with those assets naturally came a controller, in this case a certain Deputy Station Chief who shall remain nameless,” Simpers smiled mirthlessly. “Right now everything the Senator touched is contaminated, and I certainly don’t intend to see a spotless career in the Secretariat go down in flames. So, yes, I saw a way to help myself by helping you and I took it. If that somehow offends you or disqualifies me from providing you the assistance you yourself seem to believe you require, then by all means feel free to walk out that door,” Jenkins Simpers said, motioning toward the door.

  He stopped and his eyes bore into those of the Imperial Admiral’s.

  “I am here to stay. If you are too, then it’s time to cut the smoke and tell me what you mean to achieve and what you need. You have my vow that nothing said in confidence in this room will leak out to anyone else of any stripe, rank or position,” said Simpers, “also, I can promise that if you let me help you here—you personally as well as House Davenport—will have the chance to let me continue helping you going on into the future.”

  “I see,” said Magnus, his mind racing and then like the trained combat officer that he was he came to a rapid decision. That decision was to take a chance and dip his toes into the murky water that was Imperial Secretariat and see what advantages he could wring out.

  Every operation was an opportunity.

  “Right now our mission is threefold: retrieve the Senator if he’s alive; recover Mighty Punisher no matter what the condition; and extricate the Empire from Cornwallis’s debacle,” said Magnus Davenport, “I personally will also add the intention of retrieving as many of our lost ships and officers as possible.”

  “How very military of you,” the smile on Simper’s face didn’t reach his eyes, “but please go on. What do you need from me?”

  “After going over the material, to succeed I believe we must create exactly the right political atmosphere,” said Admiral Magnus.

  Simpers looked at him in surprise. “Imagine that...an officer who doesn’t intend to go in there guns blazing,” said Jenkins Simpers with mock shock.

  “Laugh it up,” Magnus said without humor. and Jenkins’ mirth disappeared as quickly as it arrived, “military action will be a key part of our strategy, or at least the threat of it will be. I’m willing to take a win and walk if it means achieving my objectives.”

  “Now that is a surprise,” Jenkins said with slitted eyes, “but do go on.”

  “Objective one is isolating our main enemy, who I have identified as this Grand Admiral Montagne of theirs. This will be done by marginalizing him and elevating his opposition,” said Magnus, “in the later states we can dangle Imperial censure versus the possibility of damage control and containment limited to this Jason Montagne of theirs in order to strip him of his allies and give his enemies ammunition. After he’s been weakened and his opponents have been allowed to taste the sweet taste of superiority, threatening to take everything away and cut a deal.”

  “How very devious,” said Simpers, a new look in his eye as he reassessed the Imperial Admiral, “I also have a few ideas on just how exactly I could help you make that happen. But how is the Grand Admiral to be weakened in the first place?”

  “We will create a military crisis to draw him out utilizing clandestine elements that you should be quite familiar with, the Reclamation Fleet. With ‘rogue elements’ of the Reclamation Fleet eager to revenge themselves and their losses on the new Spineward Sectors Government, all eyes and attention will be focused toward Sector 26 and they will have no choice but to respond with their best,” Davenport explained. “Then when they are distracted I will arrive, strike fear in the hearts of the Spineward Sectors Assembly, and offer them everything they have ever wanted on a silver platter: peace with the Empire and a reunion with the rest of civilized space on terms they can accept. All they’ll have to do is throw out the hero of the hour and the only man, as far as I can see, who has the stones, the brains and the sheer gall to cross the Empire and succeed at doing it,” said Magnus Davenport. “At every turn it is this Admiral Montagne who has impeded us. With his own people turning against him he’ll be isolated from his allies and unable to oppose us.”

  “A simple enough plan, but what if he sees you coming?” asked Simpers. “Because I agree with you: Jason Montagne has far too often been at the forefront when the Spine has thwarted the Empire.”

  “We won’t move until he’s personally engaged,” said the Imperial Admiral with confidence, “and for that I’m going to need a few things from you which we will discuss later.”

  “Alright, you don’t want to let the cat entirely out of the bag this early in our relationship. I can respect that,” said Jenkins Simpers.

  “I will issue orders for Reclamation Fleet forces to provoke the new Spineward government until they have no choice but to respond, and then we'll fall back and avoid a decisive battle until Montagne’s arrival. After that,” he slapped his hands together with a crack, “I will take them down in detail. Either with politics or military action, and I really don’t care which.”

  “Your plan may succeed, but if you lose too many ships it won’t matter. You could succeed in your mission but if you make the Empire look weak and ineffective you’ll lose everything you have the moment you return back home,” advised Simpers, “think about that.”

  Magnus frowned. “I expected to have more latitude,” he said finally.

  “Oh, you’ll have latitude. They’re going to give you enough rope to hang yourself with. If you take serious fleet losses and Cornwallis is alive, you could maybe throw him to the wolves. But if he’s dead and you don’t handle the situation flawlessly, they’re going to be out there demanding red meat and you’ll be on the menu,” advised Jenkins.

  “So quick to turn over your old boss to the wolves, Simpers?” asked Magnu
s.

  “Who said he was my boss? I serve the Empire, not any one Admiral or politician,” Jenkins Simpers said pointedly.

  “Point taken and remembered,” said Magnus.

  “Make no mistake, once I assist you we’re in the same boat. If you fail, I fail, so I will do everything I can to make you succeed,” said the Agent. “Look, you have to be careful; you can’t afford to make the Empire look bad and still expect to retain your command when you return to stand before the Senate and account for your actions.”

  “You’ve said that before. I’m well aware of the risks involved.”

  “I’m not certain you are. I’ve been at this for a long time and it's clear as crystal Bellucci and others are looking for someone to hang out to dry; they’ll not hesitate to paint with a wide brush. It’s not just you they’ll tar and feather, but your top sub-commanders and anyone in your personal patronage network that you’ve brought up. They’ll want this situation fixed quickly so they won’t have to deal with Pontifex. They’re fools for believing they can avoid him but that won’t stop them from attempting damage control, and that means if and when they go after you they’ll pull you up root and branch leaving nothing behind that can threaten them,” advised Simpers, “your elderly grandfather won’t be able to save you, Senator or no.”

  “I’m a Davenport. I’m intimately aware of just how cutthroat Imperial politics can be,” said Magnus, “I only took this job because if I refused it would stain my reputation. My House only has two scions able to take a place in the Senate, and I can’t afford to wait another twenty years to make Junior Senator.”

  “If Senator Davenport dies before he can shepherd you into the Senate, your House will rapidly decline,” agreed Simper.

  “Which is why I must succeed,” said Magnus, “this is my chance for two Triumvirs to owe me a favor, and receive Senate recognition and approval in one fell swoop.”

  “Forget about your future political career for a moment and come back down to the reality of today. They won’t interfere no matter what you decide, so long as you succeed,” warned Simpers, “but after you come back they’ll crucify you in a heartbeat to save the reputation of the Empire. Even execution might not be off the table. The ‘favor’ of a highly placed politician can be just as deadly as a blaster bolt, and that’s even if you succeed in gaining it in the first place.”